


a list, in no particular order:

by troisdent



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Development, Character Study, Eating Disorders, Family, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Siblings, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troisdent/pseuds/troisdent
Summary: There are little differences between before and after. Almost unnoticeable to anyone, including Nico, even or especially when he’s looking for them. All he knows is that they are:1. Definitely there.2. Highly improbable.3. Making his entire life before this point seem like one huge, unfunny joke.





	1. 1. (summer)

**Author's Note:**

> here’s a good good joke: i began this fanfiction in july 2016

1. 

By the time Nico is zipping up his bags, Kayla Knowles is already hovering over him, fidgeting with the strap of her quiver. His hands move through his pack, practiced beneath her gaze, his thoughts easy.

A list, in no particular order:

  1. A rope, made out of hemp for him by Billie Ng. Dubiously reliable.  

  2. Some bandages, floral patterned, already used once but not very bloody yet. The adhesive is wearing off, but he can always find some double sided tape for the edges.  

  3. A water bottle, empty. Smells mysteriously of vodka, though not _too_ mysteriously of vodka.  

  4. His wrist braces.  

  5. A pack of sugar free gum, for anxious chewing.  

  6. An Etch-A-Sketch, for entertaining particularly difficult ghosts.  

  7. A 2004 Tamagotchi Connection V2, for entertaining particularly difficult demigods. Himself. For entertaining himself.  

  8. A wool blanket.



Nico hums thoughtfully, wanting to pack correctly for the location. Ambrosia? No, no need. He’ll be safe, that’s the point. No pens, they’ll have those. Nico’s hands twitch for the old MP3 player on his nightstand but clamp down on the top pocket of his bag instead. He’d hate himself forever if he broke that, and Styx knows he’d manage to drop it in a river.

The last sunlight shines through the window straight onto him, something that would serve to hurt his eyes if he was looking up at it instead of focusing on packing. It feels hot against his neck and through his shirt, the humidity making the dark wood of his cabin smell all musty in the air. Like mildew, maybe, or mothballs, but mostly kind of like weed. He hopes Kayla doesn’t know what weed smells like yet, then makes a mental note not to voice his observation out loud for fear that she’ll agree with him.

She does not seem to follow his momentary calmness, her face screwing up more and more by the second. The beams of light through the curtains make the dust in the room visible to the naked eye, floating around her and her colourful pixie cut like fairy dust. Kayla makes an effort not to sneeze and Nico makes an effort not to point out that her nose is running, the two of them polite in different ways.

Kayla shifts back and forth on her feet as if playing tennis, looking sick to her stomach as if playing tennis with Laurel and Holly. She breaks the silence with a strangled sound deep in her throat, and Nico nods placatingly as if to agree.

“It’ll only be a few days,” he says, voice smooth and obliging. He leaves the end of his sentence tilted up in pitch instead of lowered and final, something he’s learned how to do at Camp Half Blood recently. People are more likely to agree with your decisions if you make it seem like they’ll be able to influence them.

Kayla groans, finally deciding to lean back on her heel and look towards the water stains on the ceiling instead of uncomfortably at the ground. “Will is going to piss himself,” she says, and Nico knows that Will’s inevitable reaction is really the only thing that’s bothering her about this.

Nico shrugs, hoisting the bag up and onto one shoulder as he stands. “The infirmary has adult diapers, right? Make him wear one of those before telling him.” He reaches behind himself to tighten it a bit, deciding that it's a bit too loose to hang comfortably.

Kayla raises an eyebrow. “Menstrual pads?”

“Nah, the ones for urinary incontinence.”

“That’s probably a misuse of medical supplies,” muses Kayla, like she’s seriously considering it.

“We all need help sometimes.” Nico shrugs again, expression going intentionally tight so as to not smile accidentally. Kayla cackles, suddenly looking delighted, and then he can’t help himself and accidentally smiles anyways.

With a couple of careful words, the atmosphere of the room is fixed. Nico curls his head to the side questioningly, dark bangs bobbing with it, as he asks, “Why is it you?” He pauses, thinks, rephrases. “I wouldn’t think of _you_ as one to try to get me to stay here all the time, is all.”

“I’m not,” says Kayla, curling a short strand of hair around her pinky finger. “That isn’t what I’m doing. You’re allowed to leave. I’d do that for my dad too, ‘f he wanted.”  
  
“Kayla, your dad kind of stinks.”

“My _other_ dad.” Kayla sticks out her tongue, and Nico feels red hot in the pit of his stomach... and also on his face. He hadn’t known about that.

Kayla seems unbothered, waving a hand flippantly at his reaction. “What I’m trying to say is that I get that he’s pretty much top priority. Just… if you ever get tired of fake underworldy pomegranates, hit me up.”

She suddenly grins, shifts her weight to her hip, and continues before he can respond, saying, “There’s an entrance to Hades in the lower level of the St. Lawrence Market, correct? In the men’s bathroom? And also the elevator of the CN Tower if you press the numbers just right?”

Nico blinks. He is suddenly afraid of her. “Um. Pardon? How do you know about...?”  
  
Kayla’s eyes crinkle into little half-moons, looking spectacularly like a particularly affectionate cat. Nico wonders if all of her family can be compared to felines, or if that’s just her and one specific older brother. “ _Everyone_ knows about them, Nico. Get food with me. You’d probably like Onoir, eh? It’s pitch black in there and sometimes you c’n get Italian stuff.”

“Gee, thanks,” Nico deadpans, running a hand through his hair in the way he picked up from spending too much time with Jason and Jason’s perpetual sheepishness. He wants to be annoyed, but she looks really genuine. Nico feels like he should be surprised over her apparent birthplace but there’s a little Terry Fox temporary tattoo on her cheek and her wool camping socks are fake, cotton and from Roots, come on, it’s obvious.

Kayla laughs, hesitates, then slowly pats him on the sharp jut of his shoulder. It’s been a month and a half since That Place and he hardly even flinches, so that’s progress, maybe.

“I’m going to make you hang out with me,” says Kayla, very sure of herself, “and I’m not even going to tell Will about it.” Nico feels a sudden hollowing endearment to the kid, a want to ruffle her cool hair. It passes without incident, and her hair once again seems less cool and more intentionally gaudy.

Nico makes a show of being reluctant and pensive, something that no one in the room buys, and then agrees to her terms. “As long as you don’t tell Will,” says Nico, even though he doesn’t really care about that at all, fake-doubt fake-clear in his voice.

Kayla laughs and nods, holding her fist out for a bump. Nico pokes her in the forehead instead, which she seems to like even better. She is not scared of him, not even a little bit, and makes fun of his relation to the Underworld as mildly and harmlessly as one would make fun of Piper Mclean’s aversion to actual hair salons.

It’s a fun quirk to her, like how she only wears Terry Fox commemorative shoelaces or how Will exclusively uses dandruff shampoo even when he doesn’t have dandruff or how Austin is only allowed to use non-toxic paint in Arts and Crafts because sometimes he absentmindedly eats the yellow one when he’s not paying attention. Nico has never been more relieved that she is here instead of someone like Percy.

He lets her walk him to the edge of camp even though he could’ve just gone through a shadow in his cabin. He lets her shoehorn him into promising to say hi to Laura Secord for her. He lets her borrow the MP3 player that Will gave him while he’s gone, and lets her swear that she won’t scratch it even a little bit.

Kayla, in turn, blasts Ice Ice Baby late into the evening each day until Will calmly tells her that she’s making him gray prematurely and Austin can grudgingly play the chords through muscle memory alone. It’s only right.

 

 

 

2.

As much as Nico does work in the Underworld, he also does not work a large amount of the time. He can only advise his father when his father is not doing paperwork, reassuring minor spirits about things like eternal damnation, meeting with other important Hadesian political figures and mooning over his step-mother. Needless to say, aside from very generic chores, he does have a lot of free time.

His free time is even more hefty now that he is more alone in the palace than ever, and Nico feels a familiar twist of grief deep in his chest every time his brain offhandedly notes how not much smells like antiseptic or floor shine or vinegar & baking soda & lemon juice anymore. It’s fine, though, it’s okay, he won’t be gone forever, that’s not how it works—Nico just won’t even get to see him again until he himself is long dead. That’s okay!

Nico names his Tamagotchi after him anyways, in his honor, because that’s definitely what Bob would have wanted out of his legacy. He tries to pretend that he’s not even a little bit sad every time it shits itself. Oh well.

It’ll turn left. Right. Left? Left? Right? Anything? Nico frowns, annoyed. He is so incredibly bad at that game. He can’t even win against fake pixels; no wonder real live animals hate him. Distantly, he remembers winning against Bianca at DDR all the time during their stay in the casino, but maybe that was just Bianca letting him.

The Tamagotchi beeps. How does it even digest food that fast? Seems inefficient.

Nico huddles beside the large floor-to-ceiling doors that his father has installed. He lies on the floor with his shoulders propped up as leisurely as one can when resting on what is undoubtedly made from cold, dark carbon and the materialized screams of what used to be a human unbecoming from itself.

With the chemically citrus smell that Nico came to associate the palace with now gone, he mostly can’t pick out a scent. He’d like to say that there’s the syrupy-sweet smell of death that’s always hanging around hospices, but it really doesn’t smell like that at all. The smell is like a lot of dust, maybe, or how plain rice pudding feels in one’s mouth, or maybe like nothing much at all. Just kind of hollow and empty and cold. Go figure.

From here Nico can hear wailing moans and thumping movement from the kitchen, which means that the staff are trying out a new recipe and that he’ll either love dinner tonight or politely decline when told the menu and go without. People keep coming in and out of his father’s office as he fiddles, just barely brushing by him and often having to step over his legs in order to narrowly avoid stepping on him instead.

A list, by occurrence:

  1. His step-mother and Hecate, holding hands, shoulder-to-shoulder and tittering about terrifying things that only they could find funny. Nico pointedly does not make eye contact when Persephone smiles at him.  

  2. A particularly neurotic ghost that he looks up to smile at calmingly, their jaw ripped down with such passion that they have to hold it up and move it manually with their hand to thank him profusely when they pass by.  

  3. The wisp of something, or someone, or a few someones, that is so far gone that even Nico can’t really see them anymore. He waves anyways.  

  4. Thanatos, looking downright bored with another five binders of endless jobs to load into his iPad and complete.



He in particular stops by Nico, tilting his head as his black shiny dress shoes scuff the cuff of Nico’s rolled-up, scummy capris. Normally, Nico would feel claustrophobic and clammy at being cornered by someone, especially someone as tall and imposing as a god, but Thanatos doesn’t really have much of a presence. So whatever. Besides, Thanatos was going to corner him for real someday in very different alternative situation, so he might as well get used to it now.

Nico squints up at him in the low light, only half taking his mind off of Pixel Bob. “‘Sup?” he asks, because he thinks he likes Thanatos, kind of, in the cautious way one can like a god that they’re not really related to. Hestia is the only real exception to that rule for him, but he thinks he can consider Thanatos friendly enough nonetheless.

Thanatos blinks at him as if he’s not quite sure if he’s still bored or vaguely interested now. They stare each other down for a good two minutes, the one-sided awkwardness making Nico’s insides curdle like the bowl of cereal Demeter left out under the sun for him last summer. He opens his mouth to try another conversation starter instead, but Thanatos cuts him off as if that had been the opportunity to talk that he’d been waiting for all along.

“You’re not dying anymore,” he says.

“Oh.” Nico blinks as well, incredibly perplexed instead of dubiously bored, very unsure of how to respond to that. “Yes, I think so too. Thank you?”

The god shakes his head, adjusting his huge black wings with a careful flutter of delicate feathers. He yawns soundlessly, not needing sleep at all but still wanting to convey the emotion for the sake of dramatism and crossing the renowned mortal-god body language barrier. “No, thank _you_. My lord would be displeased if I had to take you right now.”

There’s no fear, but Nico does feels the itch to laugh bubbling up through his ribs, something short and disbelieving. Smiling at him accommodatingly, Nico points out, “He’s just inside that room. He can still hear you.”

“I am aware.” Thanatos smiles back in the same way, tight-lipped and vague, and then turns to leave. The hallway is long but he is gone in a moment, Nico’s brain rewriting the time before his leaving to make it seem like he was never really there.

That entire conversation made no sense to him at all, so Nico snorts and returns to his Tamagotchi. He hates it when gods pull that kind of stuff. Beep.

Bob is hungry, unhappy and surrounded by shit. Nico nods. That’s relatable.

 

 

 

3.

When he gets back, Will has a cow. Given the situation, that’s just to be expected.

Will and his nagging are annoying, but tolerable. Nico feels like maybe he’d be very upset if Will ditched camp without telling him, too, even if he came back just a bit later. If Will had told him first, though, he would have let Will leave, and that’s the fundamental difference.

The first thing about suddenly having and knowing friendship is that he can let Will cool off and then still be friends with him later. Maybe he’ll even poke Will in the chest, roll his eyes a little, get a good bit of bickering in, that he didn’t miss, of course, he just. Anyways.

The second thing about suddenly having and knowing friendship is that Will is not his only fucking friend in the whole world, thank you very much.

With Piper’s siblings all evacuated and hanging out elsewhere, the Aphrodite cabin isn’t too bad of a place to play board games, all things considered. With all of the miscellaneous junk that Piper is constantly shoving into her pockets off of it, her bed is downright comfortable to sprawl his shitty garbage body across.

The covers are so soft that he feels almost like he’s going to fall asleep, even sitting up with no support like this. The heart-shaped pink pillow in his lap seems like a given. Like, naturally, there would be a heart pillow in Nico di Angelo’s lap. He has never not had this exact pillow in his lap.

“This card says that Jason has to go to jail,” says Piper. She taps two of her fingers on her chin, reading it out loud for the two boys with her. “The player to your right spends two nights in prison. They miss two turns unless they pay twenty grand in bail money.”

Jason does not have that much needed twenty grand. In fact, he has negative money already. Jason frowns, reaching up between his off-centre glasses and face flesh to rub at his cheek. “Okay, now you’re just making things up.”

“It says on my card that you’re a sore loser,” adds Nico.

Piper laughs, runs with the joke. She picks up another card and pretends to read it. “Oh! This one says that you’re bad at this game.”

Nico leans over to his left, peering down at the card Piper is holding. “Wow, there’s even a fine print!” He plucks it out of her hand, eyes going wide and mouth opening into an incredulous ‘O’ shape. “It says right here that you’re a sweaty nerd.”

To his left, Piper grins, half-fond and half-cheeky, her eyes narrowing. She looks beautiful and terrifying. “It also says that I’m hotter than you, Jason.”

Nico nods, accommodating. “The font size is very small.”

They reach over without looking to high-five each other, missing the first time. The second time they do it the movement is flawless and totally cool. Jason’s frown is getting deeper and more exaggerated by the second.

“Okay!” says Jason, throwing his hands up in the air, “I get it! Blah, blah, blah, it’s always make fun of Jason time. Jason smells like a wet dog, Jason always loses his glasses! The newest one is that Jason sucks at board games! Add _that_ to the list of dumb stuff you’ve made fun of me for, I guess.”

A list, ever-growing, of dumb things Nico and Piper have made fun of Jason for:

  1. Jason’s smell is pretty dog-like. It can be compared to that. It comes from him constantly rolling in the grass, not unlike, a big huge stupid dog.  

  2. Jason is always losing his glasses. They are almost always under his bed or on his forehead, but those are, without fail, the last places he thinks to check.  

  3. He sweats. Gods, he sweats so bad. There is so much sweat. He always wants to hug but his armpits are always sweaty. Being Jason’s friend is a living hell on earth.  

  4. HIS GLASSES. ARE ALWAYS. LOPSIDED.  

  5. “How did you not know you needed glasses that bad until you got glasses? How did you get up stairs with no spacial awareness? How did you fucking survive for sixteen whole years?”  

  6. The way he rubs at his cheek or the back of his neck when he’s embarrassed. Makes him more embarrassed. Rubbing intensifies. Once got rug burn on his face because of the friction.  

  7. Anything he has ever done, ever, on karaoke night.  

  8. The fact that he literally, actually drank literal, actual poison just to prove a point to an acquaintance.  

  9. Bricks. Get a helmet.


  1. Staplers. Don’t eat office supplies.



One more, for the history books.

  1. His apparent badness at board games. Give up on everything.



Jason’s hands falter in the air while he mentally grasps for more things to complain about. Instead, they fold in front of his chest, hard, a defeated look on his face. “You guys,” he says, erring on the side of a grumble, “are _the worst_.”

Piper laughs again, louder, looking as delighted as she ever possibly could be. Nico hides a smile of his own behind an inconspicuous hand.

“I was just making fun of your mad skills so that you ‘nd me could quit playing and make out,” Piper says reassuringly, pretending to flirtatiously bat her eyelashes. She wrings an arm around his neck and pushes her cheek into Jason’s shoulder, all dead weight.

“Yeah, me too,” says Nico, his face stone cold. He pointedly kicks at their legs over the game board, as if to remind them that he is still very much present and still very much uninterested in their intimate lives.

Piper, ignoring Jason’s suddenly very red face and very clammy skin, blindly reaches back to grab the front of Nico’s shirt and tug him towards the fray. He makes it there, knocking over board game paraphernalia in the process. “The three of us,” she laughs, voice only half-muffled by Jason’s huge arm, “make for a _grand_ ole time.”

Nico tenses, but relents to her whims. As if he had a choice. “If either of you kiss me I’m leaving camp forever,” he says. Nico knows he’s only half-joking.

“I’d come after you,” retorts Jason, as if that’s a good comeback. Nico knows he’s only half-joking.

“Adorable. Can we shut up and enjoy the moment, you guys?” says Piper. “Like, this is a good moment.”

 

 

 

4. 

Piper and Jason leave camp early to go back to California for school, eventually. Will and Nico have a Big, Bad, Emotionally Exhausting Conversation about the Use Of Death-Inducing Powers and get over it just as quickly as it happened. Life moves on.

That’s just one thing about life. It moves on. There are other things, for other times; sometimes it's hard, sometimes it’s bad, sometimes you want to kick it in the fucking metaphysical ribs. This is one of the situations where all of those things apply.

Nico sits in the dining pavilion for breakfast, on the hard, old wood of the Apollo cabin’s table. He is allowed to be there. Most of the younger Apollo kids have already packed up and gone to archery practice. There is food in front of him, brought to him by a wood nymph on duty. There is a goblet to the side—he can’t remember his favorite drink, so it is filled with water.

This does not seem that hard, nor that bad. Unfortunately for Nico, a quantifiable level of nausea seeps into his chest, the back of his throat, making his bones ache, making his joints cramp. He stares down at his plate with a kind of awe-filled revulsion.

A list, accumulating, of things that will not make Nico want to eat:

  1. Scrambled eggs.  

  2. Bacon and pancakes.  

  3. Macaroni and cheese.  

  4. Peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwiches.  

  5. Eggplant parmesan.  

  6. Chocolate cake.  

  7. Those little mini hot dog things.  

  8. Pepperoni pizza.  

  9. French toast.



There is a new something, just added to the list, glaring back up at Nico as if it had eyes and a mouth and was verbally threatening to murder him.

  1. Waffles with syrup.



There is a little plate of fresh fruit off to the side of the main course filled with strawberries, grapes, blueberries and an apple. That is fine. Nico can deal with fruit, he can eat fruit, and that is fine to him. He busies himself with staring at that instead, trying not to think about it.

It’s hard. He can still smell it. Nico knows that it’s not really that hot, not really happening, but he can feel the warmth of the stuff on his hands. There are two waffles, both huge and fluffy and golden and crisp in the right places. They look dense, but soft, stacked one over the other. The syrup is sickly sweet and a deep colour, soaking into them. There is a knob of butter on top that’s half melted already, glistening in the light. He can still smell it.

There’s too much. He has to eat it but there’s too much. He didn’t even work for it. He didn’t even do anything to deserve it. He doesn’t even need it. There’s too much.

There is a familiar, awful tug of sensation in Nico’s stomach. He knows he looks even more ashen than usual, especially since his skin has started to go back to being brown over the past few months. He knows that his forearms are trembling noticeably on his lap. He feels like he’s going to throw up, and, with that thought, he heaves a dry gag and cups his face with his hands.

In the end, it is Austin’s awkward, “Hey, um, dude?” that gets Nico to look up.

His skin itches when he realizes that Austin, Kayla and Will are all staring at him, but not as much as it would have if it were more people. Not as much as it would have if it were any people other than them.

Austin smiles at him, trying for what looks like a flippant expression and falling just short, continuing with a slightly less pitchy, “You okay, buddy?” Kayla, next to him on the other side of the table, is blank-faced and braced like she’s readying an action, or maybe just waiting for Nico to pull out a knife and stab Austin up the nose with it.

Nico swallows, breathing in short little sniffs, and nods to replace any kind of snipped retort he could lend to that. His vision spins, making him dizzy, and when it refocuses Kayla has pulled the plate of waffles across the table towards her. She tugs it off and onto her lap, out of view, almost inevitably getting syrup on her denim shorts in the process.

Before he can even begin to wonder why, Will has leaned into his line of sight, snapping his fingers to get Nico’s attention on him. He’s not smiling, not yet, but his eyes are soft. “Can I touch you, or is that too much?” he asks, his hands not even beginning to move towards him without him responding first.

Nico genuinely considers it for a good few moments before deciding to nod carefully. Will scoots back to his place beside him, puts both his hands on Nico’s cheeks and turns his head towards him. It is now very clear to him that Nico is no longer looking at the table at all.

Will begins to smile. There is a tugging sensation in his chest, still, but it’s slightly different than before. “How are you feeling right now?” he asks, every bit the practiced doctor.

“...Was gonna throw up, I think,” says Nico, blearily. He still feels fuzzy around the edges, but the pins and needles that were in his body are gone. He blinks slowly, finds that that makes it better, and keeps his eyes shut.

“Alright.” Will’s smile is still there, Nico’s sure, even though he can’t see him anymore. His voice seems a little tense, regardless, like he’s not quite sure what to do but is aware that something needs to be done. “Alright,” he repeats, then, “we’re going to make a game plan today, you and I.”

Nico breathes in sharply. “A game plan.”

“Usually you pick at your food,” says Will, “or don’t really eat at all. We’re going to try something that’ll be a bit easier on you, okay?”

 _Can I go back to my cabin, then?_ Nico thinks, but doesn’t say. _Can I just not come next time?_ It would make it easier on him to not have to eat in the first place. He is pretty sure that is not at all what Will means.

True to script, it is not at all what Will says. “I’m going to have to ask you to eat the fruit. That’s okay, right? Are you fine with that?”

Nico lets out the breath he wasn’t aware he was stuttering on. He nods his head minutely, picked up by Will if only because Will’s hands are in contact with his face.

“Great!” Will sounds encouraging, now, like Nico is one of his little siblings trying to learn how to hold a sword. In any other circumstance, Nico would make fun of him for it. Or snap at him. Or shrug him off. In this circumstance, he finds that that would take a lot more energy than he has.

Will’s palms move off of him, hovering in the space between them. Nico opens his eyes again, glancing up to catch the millisecond-long flicker of doubt on Will’s face. It is replaced quickly, and Will says, “You’re going to have to trust me on the next part. I’m going to get you something else to eat.”

Nico makes a pained face, his heart beating hard against his rib cage. Will holds up his hands placatingly.

“It won’t be bad,” Will amends, “and if you really, really hate it we can work something else out. I’m just— _not_ letting you eat apples for the rest of your life.”

Oh, and there it is. There’s the set of the brows, the tilt of the chin, that says that Will is determined to do something stupid. If Nico agrees, it's because there is no other option.

A good five minutes of Austin and Kayla trying to make small talk with him is ended when Will comes back, sits at his side and places a bowl in front of him, next to the fruit.

There is mush in the bowl. It is a bowl of mush. The mush is chunky in some parts and thin in others. It is an almost disgusting pale, grayish beige color. There is no discernible smell coming from it and it looks like particularly unappetizing baby food. It’s the kind of food that no one else would eat, and no one else would miss. It’s the kind of food that someone could spare to give Nico, even if he didn’t really do much to warrant getting it.

“It’s oatmeal,” Will explains, ears turning reddish at Nico’s inscrutable reaction. “You can put toppings on it, if you want, but I figured the safest bet was to bring it to you plain.” His smile is wide despite his embarrassment, both his teeth and braces showing.

Nico eats the oatmeal.

 

 

 

5.

The lake looks pretty.

Any clouds are basically absent from the sky, making the water glint blue and see-through instead of murky and opaque. Far away, Nico can see small canoes and the even smaller orange blips of the campers piloting them, their general area churning white from effort.

The dark sand of the bank is kind of moist, but not wet, in the way that it is comfortable to curl up on but probably won’t keep on the back of Nico’s jeans when he stands up. Little fish bones are only a bit under the surface, the sand made from decay. It’s comforting. He doesn’t quite remember if he knows how to swim, and every party has agreed that sitting over the deepest part of the lake would not be the best place to test his abilities.

Instead, he stays by the edge, a while away from the docks. He could have stayed sitting on the wood there, waiting for the others to come back in the same place he had sent them off from, but, well. This is better. Nico likes this better. There is the sharp, flat jut of a small cliff behind his back, and it would be very hard for something to sneak up on him like this. It gives him the opportunity to actually pay attention, not sit all plastic soldier, imagining knives in his the nape of his neck.

Besides, with no one there to be privy to it, it doesn’t matter if he cracks a grin when a younger Apollo camper knocks Kayla into the lake. No one but he will know anything about that. And if he can’t help but laugh when she starts loudly complaining about how her green hair dye is going to fade, well. That part certainly isn’t important either.

Will’s voice is a bit too quiet to hear from so far away, but Nico does his best make up things that fit with his body language. He pivots his chest to look at his littler sibling, chin tilted up. The details are lost in the distance, but one of his eyebrows is most likely raised. _Was that a good idea?_ asks Will, unimpressed. The little camper shakes their head. Will nods. _No, I didn’t think so either. Do you think you should apologize to your sister now?_

Will's holding back laughter, though. Will probably thinks that that was the funniest shit ever.

Austin is not helping Kayla out of the water. Instead, he has produced a waterproof camera and is filming it for his vlog. She tries to splash water at him, most of it getting blocked by the side of the canoe and not reaching its target.

Nico is almost certain that this is what fondness feels like, which is ridiculous. It hasn’t been more than two months, a time period that is not nearly long enough to get endeared to other people. Especially not children of Apollo, who is, like, pretty fucking annoying, as far as gods go. Still, he finds himself thinking that the exchange is cute. He finds himself relaxing in his posture, idly rubbing sand in between his thumb and his forefinger.

Dropping his guard is enough for him to not realize that someone is watching him.

At least not for a while, that is. The quiet noise of wings being adjusted is enough to clue him in. Nico flinches hard backwards on his seatbones, reflexes managing to get him to draw his sword and spin towards the sound with little to no thought. If the sound had been coming from another demigod, or a wood nymph, or a satyr, or a large monster, he may have managed to cut their head off.

As it stands, the sound was made by something much smaller than the average mortal, and he misses by a good two feet. A small owl, no taller than one and a bit of Nico’s hands, perches on a large part of driftwood just to his right, and back. It is reddy-brown, with big olive-colored eyes that stare directly at him, unblinking.

It reminds him of Ascalaphus, he realizes. An ancient custodian of the orchard of Hades, guilty of telling Olympus that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds and dooming her to be queen. Demeter buried him under a rock, let him suffocate. Persephone turned him into an screech owl and gave him to Nico's father as a wedding gift. A sign of bad luck and a sign of death, a messenger. Maybe this is Ascalaphus himself, an omen that something very bad is about to happen. Nico feels sick to his stomach.

Its head juts to the side, cocks sharply. It is a familiar action, something that both he and Hazel do on the regular, from long-rooted habit. _Oh,_ thinks Nico, then, almost embarrassed that it took him so long, _that’s probably just Dad._

It adjusts its wings a second time, blinks at him for the first time. He twiddles his fingers at it, a tentative wave. “Are you here for some actual business?” he asks. It doesn’t nod or speak to him. Perhaps he is just talking at a simple woodland creature. Perhaps screech owls don’t have the neck muscles necessary to be capable of nodding their heads.

The owl’s eyes flick down, up, like it’s looking over his body for any grievous injuries. It shifts from foot to foot on the driftwood, all quick little movements like a robot, or someone not quite used to their own body.

Nico shrugs, awkwardly. This is a weird situation, just in general. “Um, yeah. I’m okay. Camp has some good medics.” He gestures vaguely towards the center of the lake, where the Apollo cabin has started to sing a beautifully terrible medley of both NSYNC and Iron Maiden songs.

The owl twists its head at an angle that would be uncomfortable for a mortal, just to look at where he’s pointing. It makes a face, twitches an ear at the pop, but almost seems to enjoy the other parts. It lets out a rapid-fire little chirrupy sound, like a grasshopper, or a lacewing.

Nico huffs out a small laugh, unable to keep the sheepish affection out of his voice when he says, “Yeah, I think I like them too.”

A list, fundamentally important:

  1. Big hands pick a three year-old Nico up by the tummy, ignoring his delighted screams. A finger waggles in his face for a bit, scolding, but then the voice seems to think better of itself. Someone kisses Nico on the nose.  

  2. Next to his older sister in a black Model T, crossing and uncrossing his ankles. “Where’s Pappa?” asks Bianca, a little bit breathless, and Nico’s face scrunches up in thought, impassive. The dried tears on his cheeks crack from the expression.  

  3. Before he goes to find the Doors of Death, his father yells at him. Nico doesn’t remember what the argument was about, but he does remember that neither of them wanted it to end. If it did, he’d have to leave.  

  4. Nico kisses him on the cheek and promises to fix everything. They hadn’t been talking about that at all.  

  5. He hadn’t eaten in a while, too busy lying blankly on the floor of a squatter’s house to go scavenge in garbage cans. He swears that he only closes his eyes for a minute, hadn’t gone out to a store in months, but the next time he rummages through his backpack to get out a bandage there is a fresh sandwich in the front pocket.  

  6. He and Persephone paint the throne room sunflower yellow, laugh about it together until they almost cry, then blame the horrifying indiscretion on a servant. Hades makes a show of being furious about it. Later, miraculously, the curtains are mauve instead of gray, a good accent color for the walls.  

  7. Nico shrugs, says, “Smite me,” continues to sit on his father’s throne, even though ancient laws dictate that he's not allowed there. Hades sighs deeply, irritated, and then plops down to do his paperwork on the floor.  

  8. It is winter, and he is shivery and blue from blood loss and almost drowning. Everything is so cold. A large arm curls under his armpits, helps him to his feet.



The two of them, an odd pair, just sit and observe for a while. They’re in a different place than they’d usually be, but they aren’t unwelcome.

When Nico glances back to his right again, the bird has flown off. He feels something almost like a loss at its absence. It doesn’t seem likely that he will be able to be around his father for another good while. The Underworld is busy but not overwhelming, and he needs to stay at camp to recharge, lest something bad happens again. It’s… upsetting, that he’s gone, for lack of a better word, but Nico knows how to live without his father watching over his back all of the time. He knows that his father has better things to do than fret over some insignificant kid that won’t even be alive in a few years anyways. It is something to expect, and he holds onto that routine ache.

It’s barely three days before he catches sight of another screech owl, preening itself in a tree just outside of the dining pavilion while Nico’s on dish-washing duty.

He supposes that his father caring is going to be a normal occurrence from now on.


	2. 2. (& beyond)

6.

Will still hasn’t stopped being annoying. Nico suspects that that will never change.

“I’m just _saying_ ,” says Will, tall enough that his feet hit the floor and his knees curl up from where he’s sitting on the infirmary bed, “that your dad is not being fair to you.”

“You’re annoying,” Nico verbalizes. He doesn’t even look at him, keeps blearily picking at the dirt under his nails, cross-legged next to him. He gets why Will’s mad, really, but this is ridiculous.

Horrible, prickly silence. Nico’s eyes flick up to his face. Will’s brows are all furrowed, mouth open slightly like he’s offended, jaw set and head tilted like he’s determined. Just like always. Nico groans, says, “You know you can’t just do this every single time I have to do something, right?”

“I can do it every time you have to do something detrimental to your health.” Will pulls back his chin in the way that tells Nico he’s trying to hide his ears from view, signifying that they’re turning red, that he doesn’t want anyone to know. He wrings his hands out, then, and begins to tug at the muddy cuff of Nico’s jeans.

Nico swats his hand away, glaring at him now. “I told you, Dad just needed me to do something for him. _You_ do chores.”

Will raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Your father had you come to do something for him at 2 o’clock in the morning. And that’s fine? You not sleeping at all is fine?”

“Will. You _literally_ just pulled an all-nighter to get infirmary work done.” Nico’s lip curls, the rigidity in his shoulders moving up to lock his neck. “Cut the bullshit.” He moves back and away from him a few inches on his hands, just so that his glaring is more effective.

“That’s different.”

“ _How_ is it different?"

“I did that of my own accord! No big dude in the ground was making me—”

“Isn’t that worse? He doesn’t make me.”

“He has you wrapped around his finger. I’m sick of it.”

“That’s not true. No one can _make me_ do anything.”

Will’s raised eyebrow gets almost uncomfortably higher. He blinks, then says, “Reyna.”

Nico scoffs, his hands removing themselves from his midsection to gesture wildly as he speaks. “Holy shit,” he says, “my one weakness! What you didn’t know is that that name is actually my command word—”

“ _Gods._ ”  
  
“—and I’m actually sleeping right now. Right this second!” He twists his hands in one dramatic circular motion, points at his face. “Do you see how I have no bags? Magic. Also, Dad was the one that cursed me to have this command word, because he’s an _awful horrible person_ that _doesn’t worry about my well-being at all._ ”

Will laughs incredulously, tiredly, flinging his arms out to his sides. “That’s not what I said! That isn’t what I said at all!”

Another pause. Too many of those.

“If you tell me to chill out I’m going to skin you,” Nico says, mumbles, if only to break the overwhelming quiet. His hands return to his core, and, without thinking, he rests his cheek in one of them. The both of them are blinking quite a lot, the blinks getting slower and thinner with every passing minute.

All the tension and hot air leaves Will through his mouth, coagulating in a huge irritating sigh. Regardless, he slumps too, says, “I wasn’t.” He closes the distance between them again, Nico’s knee brushing his thigh, and Nico lets him.

Another pause, another, while Nico thinks. “You need,” he begins, pauses again. “You need to stop overworking yourself.”

A list, irritatingly hypocritical:

  1. Will doesn’t sleep, most of the time. He preaches eight hours and then gets thirty minutes.
  2. He’s the king of overworking himself. Now that Will doesn’t have to set an example for Nico, doesn’t have to worry about him as much, _Nico_ is the one that has to drag _him_ down to the dining pavilion. If he’s not in the infirmary, he’s filling out infirmary paperwork somewhere else.
  3. Will doesn’t always eat the healthiest. At least Nico likes fruit—Will’s go-to snack is fucking potato chips. ‘The low fat kind,’ argues Will, as if that’s any better. Just eat some snapea crisps, dickhead.
  4. He often forgets that he needs to take showers.
  5. He often forgets that he needs to drink water.
  6. He is hugely, terribly addicted to caffeine. Black coffee. Energy drinks. Soda. The kid’s heart is going to stop.
  7. Will has bad mental health days and still works. He has bad mental health days and no one knows, if they aren’t really close to him. Kayla, Austin and Nico often have to tag team him to get him to chill and play some videogames with them in the Big House.
  8. The list can go on, and on. Nico would be lying if he wasn’t a little worried.
  9. Will often forgets that people worry about him.



Will huffs a laugh again, still not happily, but a little more genuinely. He grins at Nico very slowly, stretched out, looking a lot like he’s moving underwater from Nico’s sleep-blurry vision. “There’s still so much work to do.”

Nico leans in closer to him. Without allowing himself to think about the implications too much, lest he stop himself, he tucks his head into the junction where Will’s neck meets his collar. Will lets him, doesn’t seem at all perturbed, even wraps his arm around Nico’s ribs and pulls the both of them back to actually lie down. They’re lying width-ways, so it’s a little short, but Nico finds it hard to make himself care about Will’s dumb legs not being able to make it on the bed.

“You’re not the only one that can do that work, though,” Nico says, trying not to yawn. “You’ve got Austin and Kayla and they both love you. I know they’re concerned about you being so stressed, too.”

Will doesn’t say anything, so Nico continues. “Stress can result in elevated blood pressure, headaches, chest pain and upset stomachs. You’re more at risk for heart disease, like this. You know that.”

Still nothing. “It’s awful hypocritical to get mad at me for doing chores, like, once every two weeks. I nap in the day sometimes to make up for it. On the other hand, _you’re_ the biggest serial insomniac I know. How many times have you stayed up just to make sure me or your siblings don’t have night terrors? Huh?”

When Will doesn’t say anything this time, Nico’s voice gets quieter. He pushes some of the fabric of Will’s scrub shirt between his thumb and his forefinger, rubbing them together. “You don’t have to be useful or productive all the time to be worth something, stupid.”

He peeks up at Will’s face, his suspicions correct. Will’s chin is tilted down, his eyes are closed, his breathing soft and steady. That’s just inconsiderate, that is. He’s the worst.

A little smile peaks at the corner of Nico’s mouth, but he squashes it. Will being asleep doesn’t mean that he can’t use his sixth sense later to know that his boyfriend thought he was cute, even for a little bit. He’d make fun of him, because that’s how Will works, the dick. Will’s hair is all mussy and his cheek is squished from how he’s lying and the boy looks an awful lot like a total loser, right now. Disgusting.

Really, really gross. He pushes his nose back into the crook of Will’s neck, just so he doesn’t have to see him anymore. His body feels warm and comfortable, here. He wonders how long they’d been bickering for.

Nico swears he only closes his eyes for a minute.

 

 

 

7.

When the praetor comes to visit, everything has to be a spectacle.

There’s an announcement of her arrival, Chiron up on a platform. There’s a formal ceremony to welcome her, all of the campers inexperienced in conducting it but supplementing their performance with excitement. There’s a banquet with her favorite foods.

Two days after she showed up, everyone throws a party, and everyone comes. It’s all congratulating her and thanking her and asking if they can hug her, maybe. Reyna gets asked a lot by younger campers if she can tell the story of them bringing the Athena Parthenos, because Nico won’t even acknowledge them if they ask him and Coach Hedge lies about it so obviously that his tall tales conflict.

Nico’s sure that between the vague but less-than-twenty number of campers and his own undying affection for her, they could achieve a genuinely raucous parade held in her honor. It’s something to think about for next time. Nico makes a mental reminder to his future self to bring it up with Chiron.

Reyna is a model of grace, her face and glory meant for bigger things than even just senseless appreciation. Nico thinks that she deserves a million television shows, a meeting with the pope, legal ownership of the moon and then on. Reyna’s own interests tell a bit of a different story.

To her credit, the party is almost over by the time she pulls him aside. From how tense her shoulders had become even at the mention of it the day before, he hadn’t been sure that she was going to last that long.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says, an order and not a question, and who is he to deny her anything?

It takes exactly zero effort to get past Ellis, working as bouncer to keep the littlest kids out and the older kids in. He winks, pretends to whistle and examine something off to the side, all the while unclipping the rope in a single practiced movement. That’s really nice, Nico thinks. He’s probably going to knock off the pranks on the Ares cabin for the next few weeks, Sherman’s hilarious rage face notwithstanding. Nico gives him the thumbs up when the two of them walk out.

‘Walk’ is a bit of an iffy word. It’s more of a lopsided jog. They leave, is what that means.

That’s how they get to Nico’s cabin. How their escape has turned into a sleepover, Nico can’t exactly remember. It might have something to do with Reyna asking him if they could have a sleepover and him agreeing vehemently, but anything is possible.

Regardless, there are pillows on the floor. There are two bowls of salty snacks for Reyna to eat and Nico to pick at. He’s somehow agreed to let her braid his hair, even with his aversion to touch and jumpiness at people being behind him.

“We should’ve invited Coach,” he says, if only to break the comfortable silence that’s making him feel kind of sleepy. He thinks that the comment works, though. They really should have invited Coach Hedge, and he’s probably going to be mad when he learns that they hung out at Camp Half-Blood without giving him the gratification of a full reunion.

Reyna’s voice comes out a little obstructed from the many peanut M&Ms in her mouth. “He’s got a child to look after,” she notes, otherwise the posterchild of stoic grace.

“He’s got two other kids right here.” Nico coughs to stop an unnecessary laugh from spilling out. He thumps a fist on the barrel of his chest. “He could have just brought Chuck with him. I love that boy.”

Reyna hums. “I _suppose_. This is more of sibling date.”

“Hazel’s not here.”

“A best friend date,” she amends. Then, “I wanted you to myself.”

Nico doesn’t even try to keep himself from smiling, doesn’t cover his mouth with a hand, doesn’t move with the urge to make it look terrifying, exaggerated, instead of genuine. This isn’t Piper and Jason, as much as he loves them too. Even the mention of her being his older sister, considering him her best friend, is making his face feel hot. Her wanting him around is making his heart beat too hard against his ribcage, feeling too swollen and big to be at all healthy.

“Oh,” he says. There are a million and one other things that he could have said, his mind racing, but the only thing that came out was less of a word and more a result of having to breathe to be alive.

“Yeah,” says Reyna, both her smile and the peanut M&Ms still being in her mouth audible in her voice. She swallows. She laughs a bit. She tugs one of the three strands of hair she’s braiding a bit too hard on purpose. Nico blindly tries to elbow her in retaliation and Reyna easily blocks it with her knee.

After a good few moments of practiced movements with her hands, Reyna scoots to the side so that she can look at her work. She thinks, curls the braid over his shoulder in the front.

Reyna smiles inquisitively, squints, rests a curled index finger on her chin. Then, “We kind of look alike.” There is no room in the statement for questioning, it being the usual misplaced order, as per Reyna’s awfully endearing habit.

Nico turns his head to look at the one mirror in his room that he hasn’t covered with a blanket, on Hazel’s side. He tries to make the movement go quicker to hide his slow reluctance.

What he sees is more surprising than he’d thought it'd be. Everything Nico had noticed about his body changing was noticed from looking down at his own arms or seeing his hair fly in front of his face. They were noted, crumpled into balls and then thrown in the mental garbage can, as he hadn’t really cared or thought they were significant enough to really think about it.

A list, getting longer with every passing day:

  1. Skin. Both brown, both dark, both glowing. Gone is the gray-green-yellow. He doesn’t look like tree sap anymore, doesn’t look like mucus.
  2. Long, dark eyelashes, meant for hotter suns than what is felt at camp. Wavy-curly hair that refuses to be anything but flyaway strands. Though his is shorter than hers, it _feels_ just as long from the comforting weight of the braid on his scalp.
  3. Their noses have the kind of familial similarity that his and Bianca’s once had, the kind that alerts teachers to the relation between two children in their afternoon and morning kindergarten classes.
  4. Hands. Criss-crossing little white scars, calluses on fingertips and in the places a sword would fit, cold and dry to the touch.
  5. Their heights are different. Their builds are different. Reyna’s powerful length to his long-since stunted growth, her functional muscles and fat to his stretched-tight-but-slightly-better. They hold themselves in the same way, used to carrying the same weight as Atlas for people who don’t really see them as people.
  6. Eyes. Dark and upturned, with prominent eyelids and under-eye circles.
  7. Mouths. A disproportionately large upper lip, in the way that is interestingly unlovely. The one dimple in their right cheek when they both smile in the way that they are, honest and alone with each other. The dark birthmark on the corner.
  8. All of those birthmarks, in general. Little dark spots, like freckles but too far apart. Will said his were cute, which means that Reyna’s are cute. Nico can agree with that part, at least.



The two of their appearances are kind of how he and Hazel have the same mannerisms, despite growing up a decade and an ocean apart. It reminds him of the fates and their weaving, how he once bought them a ball of Pima yarn for what he thought was maybe their birthday, the first of January. They hadn’t put down the string to ruffle his hair, but they had let him sit down with them and listen to the oldest one’s story about King Frederick the Great and the plot to run to Britain.

He thinks that this is maybe a sign that he and Reyna were always supposed to belong together. Instead of voicing this thought, he turns to his best friend and nods his head.

Reyna looks delighted, like she had wanted more than anything for him to agree with her. She holds out a hand, asking.

Again, again. Who is he to deny her anything? He takes it.

 

 

 

8.

If Nico has to do chores for his dad, he has to do chores for Chiron, too.

It’s a silent agreement between them. Nico can wear his own clothes and sit at the Apollo table and prank Sherman bi-weekly and _stay_ as long as, in other ways, he doesn’t get more privileges than the other campers. He finds he kind of likes the normalcy, at least when he’s not cleaning out the latrines by himself.

This one has to be his favorite.

“You’re over-correcting,” he says, and kneels to take a kid’s foot and angle it in the right way. The second he does, the faulty leg he’d been eyeing is in the right position, with the right stiffness. “If you line your feet up properly you have the right base. The rest of the form will follow.” Nico stands up, wondering if he should pat the kid on the head to let her know he’s not mad at her, or disappointed. Sometimes he can come across like that, which is most of the time.

To his utmost relief, the kid just nods determinedly and gets back to practicing her blocks. She doesn’t burst into tears or anything. This group must’ve gotten used to him by now.

Nico teaches the class of eight-to-twelve year-olds the basics of sword fighting most evenings before dinner. It would probably be weird if they _hadn’t_ figured him out yet. He still hasn’t memorized most of their cabins. He still hasn’t memorized most of their names.

A list, getting more detailed with fun facts every passing day:

  1. Diagram. So-called because whenever he explains or demonstrates anything she draws a diagram of it in the dirt with her wooden sword. Every time he corrects her form, she scuffs parts of the notes out with the sole of her shoe and redraws them, making edits. She takes his constructive criticism and listens to his implied cues and makes him feel just generally pretty inadequate. A daughter Athena, he thinks, because of her gray eyes, and also because of her habits.
  2. Demon Kid. A pointed thing with curly brown hair and an excited smile. They bounce when they talk, but speak with the smooth neutrality that Nico’s only ever heard from his diplomat grandfather. Their hands are eternally held behind their back as a resting position, like they’re always making a proposition that will end with him killed. They aren’t nicknamed for their misbehaving but instead for their uncanny impression of him and their unnerving interest in the undead and occult. Nico isn’t even sure that they’re a Hecate kid.
  3. Little and Small. They don’t look anything alike and Nico doesn’t think they’re even from the same cabin. They’re just both the youngest and tiniest of the bunch. He doesn’t even want to touch them for fear of breaking bones, though he knows that that’s unreasonable.
  4. Asphalt, or Scuff-Knees. The nickname depends on the day, depends on whether she has dirt on her face or seventeen spiderman band-aids on her legs. Gap-toothed smile, bruises, cuts, grass stains. The girl tucks and rolls and dives even when the class isn’t supposed to be learning evading tactics. She always brings snacks to practice and gets sticky residue all over her hands, then all over Nico’s new jacket.
  5. Harley is the only name he knows, if only because of Piper and Jason quietly and sadly talking about Leo’s siblings. He’s not bad at using a sword, but he _is_ bad at actually doing his repetitions instead of just plopping down on the ground to tinker.



He’s doing it right then, in fact. Nico stifles a groan and keeps his face blank. He steps over to the boy and looks down at him intimidatingly from his vantage point, keeping attention on the other children from the corner of his eye if only to make sure Demon Kid doesn’t point their wooden sword at anyone again. He slowly raises an eyebrow at Harley, who looks simultaneously ashamed and confident. “What do you think you’re doing, kiddo?”

A siren sounds from the dining pavilion, saying that it’s time for dinner.

The dining pavilion that everyone has to go to with their cabin. The siren that means that the kids should have already long since returned to their counselors.

“Oh, Styx,” whispers Nico, in replacement for the other S-word. He turns to the children, trying to keep his face level and expectant.

Diagram speaks. He can always count on her. “I’m going to go find Malcolm,” she says, then walks out to do exactly that. Good girl.

The other children don’t look as inclined to make his life easy. They stare up at him with pleading eyes, like Percy’s baby seal face, like _one more minute._ Nico is definitely sure that he couldn’t even teach one other position in a minute, so he isn’t at all tempted by their dumb adorable faces and the fact that they seem to think that he’s pretty cool.

So, at least outwardly, Nico just rolls his eyes and begins to shepherd the group with force. “Nope, nuh-uh. I’m the boss, you listen to me. Get out, this is my patch of forest.” Some of the children plant their feet firmly on the ground. He’s strong enough to still move them, but damn if his arms don’t begin to strain.

“Can we get our food and come back to eat here?” asks Small.

Little beams. “Yeah, we’ll pick up our litter ‘n everything!”

“Nope.” Nico’s gait starts to move even faster. “There’s a dining pavilion for a reason, and the reason is metal ants will eat you out here and I will let them and I will laugh.”

“We didn’t even get’ta pluck out your eyes and summon an incubus yet,” says Demon Kid, mournfully, chin tilting up so far that they can see Nico even while he’s pushing them forward, hand firmly planted on their back.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he retorts, flippantly, “but it is _time for dinner_ now _._ ” Then he pushes the rest of the children beyond the shadow of one of the oak trees, stamps his foot to make it solid and turns on his heel to leave and avoid the sounds of them banging their little fists on the barrier.

There is an older camper there.

Nico stops in his tracks. His eye twitches. Also, he may or may not have almost shit himself.

“I wouldn’t have actually summoned a demon, or whatever,” he tries to explain, words coming out way too fast and jumbled, “well—I mean—I would’ve, but a ghost, not a demon? And I’d’ve known them personally I was just going to get one of my friends to pretend to be evil to scare them so they wouldn’t keep asking so much anymore—”

With that last word, his vision suddenly catches up to his brain. The other camper is grinning. It’s just Austin.

“I didn’t know you were good with kids,” he says. He puts his hands on his hips, like he had meant for the statement to sound like a personal affront. The wide goofy smile is still on his face.

Nico’s brain fizzles trying to come up with what exactly about what Austin overheard made it seem like he was at all responsible enough to care for children. He tries to make up another excuse, or at least bullshit convincingly in another way. “...Hhuh?” Nailed it.

Austin laughs. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He puts a finger over his mouth, like _shhhh_ , but when Nico really thinks about it that isn’t a gesture that makes sense for what he just said. Austin adjusts his weight, rolls his shoulders, says, “Y’know, though, I bet we could get Chiron to let you teach more classes.”

That. Doesn’t make sense at all. Nico’s brow furrows. “I literally do not understand.” Nailed it.

He shrugs. “I dunno, they seemed like they were having fun?”

“Having fun? By threatening... to pull my eyes from my head?”

“That’s just ten year olds, dude. They’re edgy.”

At _that,_ Nico can relax. Austin’s called him edgy a few times too. “Yeah, I guess,” he says, and mimics Austin’s shrug. “They’re kinda okay when they listen to what I say. Less annoying.”

“You like them,” Austin observes, then quiets a bit. He suddenly looks a bit uncomfortable, fidgets with his fingers. He shifts on his feet a bit, then fiddles with the strap of the saxophone case slung over his shoulder. “I’ve kinda been meaning to ask you something.”

Well, fuck. The tenseness returns to Nico’s shoulders.

Austin smiles sheepishly. “We, um. Kind of suck at sword-fighting? The Apollo cabin, that is.” He pulls out his disposable camera and turns the film back rapidly with his thumb, making a whirring noise. “Kayla’s got her bow but me ‘n Will are kind of—we’ve got different talents. Just saying.”

Nico’s definitely had this conversation before, a bit more negative, with someone who shares Austin’s dimples. “Well,” he says, almost practiced, “that doesn’t negate your worth, at all. You aren’t less useful just because we’re in some hyper-violent bloodfest universe and your aptitudes work for stuff other than clobbering people. Being useful isn’t even the most important thing, anyways. It doesn’t even list. Did someone say something? Was it Sherman? I can kill Sherman for you.”

Austin cuts him off with a pretty pearl of laughter, definitely bit too loud for the situation. “Nico, bro. If we got into a close range fight we’d die. Teach us too?”

Oh.

Austin smiles at him tentatively, fondly, when he stops dead. It’s an expression he’s only seen on Hazel before, like what the unusual thing he just did was endearing and not annoying or creepy or weird. Nico is vaguely startled, feeling like he has cardiomegaly, but in the other way. The okay, good way that’s not bad. They want him.

He’s quick to reply, if only to get this conversation over with. Not because he thinks he likes the idea of hanging out with the three of them even more. Not _really_.

Regardless of the reason, Nico swallows the lump in his throat and nods. “Sure thing.”

 

 

 

9.

Oh, this is a day, isn’t it?

Not much is abnormal about this day, but it is a day. Fall is happening outside of Camp Half-Blood and the trees outside the border have turned red in age. Miranda is making everyone her chili hot chocolate and spiced cider, and she’s making Sherman help. The roasted potatoes have been switched for yams at lunch. Billie is making Paolo a new scarf because he ruined his last one, and Chiara is trying very, very hard to braid Kayla’s very, very short hair.

Will is working in the infirmary, probably. Austin is lying in his bed, wishing that he could sleep in. The sun is moving and the air is breathable and Mount Vesuvius has just been a big hill for a long time, now. Not much is abnormal about this day, and nothing has really changed.

This is the part that feels the most familiar, if anything. Everyone’s all big smiles and fixable problems and their own issues and he, he’s just in a small place. He’s not on the street anymore, not outside, but there is a draft, and it is cold. His ribs hurt from the sharp, uneven way that he is lying on the hilt of his sword. His spine hurts from the curled-up, stiff way he tucks his nose into his knees. His head hurts from the, his heart hurts. From.

Nico is trying to convince himself that he is still in his room. He is in his body. All of this will pass and he will be in the same state he was yesterday, explaining to an endlessly curious Harvey why people put coins on dead people’s eyes. He keeps all his drachma and denarii in another jacket. Instead.

A list, running through his head, all scrambled and fast and overwhelming and big:

  1. this is not the place for him despite everything he can tell from all of the little glances his friends will smile at him from across a table and then tense up when he is close enough to touch this is not the place for him and he is selfishly making the people he loves have to walk on eggshells
  2. No one will ever trust him again. Not when he ruined it. Will will not trust him to use his powers responsibly. Jason will not trust him not to leave. Hazel will not trust him to love her as something other than a replacement for Bianca. Bianca will not trust him to let her go, and left before he could make that choice. Percy will not trust him. His father will not trust him.
  3. from a young child to an older kid from annoying to creepy nico has always been and will always be too much
  4. Oh, isn’t that sad? Isn’t that heartbreaking? There is no home. The little flat in Venice is rotted and old and occupied. The casino, an eternal sentence to something he doesn’t want, eternity. Washington, the school, was never anything to him without Bianca. That palace, never lived in. Camp, terrifying.
  5. Oh, isn’t this worse? Maybe there is a home. All those haunted cabins in the woods, the windows smashed out and animal shit on the floor. All those little concrete enclaves behind dumpsters. The carelessly opened mausoleums to sneak into. The calmness of Asphodel, the idea of just falling asleep there for a bit. The Lethe river calling to him. Tartarus.
  6. tartarus
  7. Oh, isn’t that a realization? That was his fault, wasn’t it? If he hadn’t left, Tartarus wouldn’t have swallowed them. It wouldn’t have been as hungry for new acquaintances. They’d still be happy. His friend would still be alive.
  8. maybe if he had died he would have stayed there forever congealed rotted into something different turned into one of its kids too Would that have been enough? As it stands the most dangerous place on Earth or in It has a fucking hundred percent survival rate
  9. Eventually, one has to recognize that maybe no one ever loved him at all. Mamma becomes an empty thing. Bianca is simply trying to get away. A leech on his father’s side. Hazel can’t think of him without feeling worthless. Family is a hole to fall into.
  10. the four years five years that he does remember in their entirety are all The worst it doesnt get better Shit just spirals Pointless Why even bother With anything at all and then there are



Many more. All are dangerous thoughts. He imagines the happy numbness before eyes get closed. How one doesn’t even remember, is not sure if or when they asleep. Foam in his mouth and bile in the back of his throat. Pain, if only for a second, in between other moments that count for more. Cold dark water and rocks in backpacks instead of swords and trail mix. Remembers learning that the water under the Golden Gate bridge is a shortcut into the Underworld for both mortals and demigods alike, in different ways. Remembers feeling horrified, when he learned that, for the first time, the hard way.

Pins and needles. Hunger pangs. Drawing back into his own head, if only for a bit of a sense of loss. It’s getting difficult to move, getting difficult to breathe in between all the dry heaving. He feels dizzy, even lying down. Today is a very, very bad day.

And Nico, he, that’s really. But the thing. About that. is.

He’s allowed to feel bad. This is quintessentially Nico, he thinks. What would he be without all these shaking hands? Take him or leave him, and he hasn’t exactly been left so much as he himself has gone away for a while.

Nico knows that, he knows it, he knows, he _knows_. He’s sure. Despite everything different, he’s allowed to feel bad.

There is a knock at his door.

 

 

 

10.

The last sunlight shines through the window straight onto him, something that would serve to hurt his eyes if he was looking at it instead of flipping a spare Roman denarii up, up, down. It’s almost winter now, sure, but it isn’t cold in here yet, not now. The warmth of his body has already transferred into the mattress beneath his thighs, to the comforter crumpled around his back. The wall behind him is a stark, comforting cool against the nape of his neck.

Dinner will be soon, which means that putting on someone else’s sweater from his closet and going to eat things will be soon. It also means that having to deal with Austin posting joke tweets about him will be soon. It also means that Iris messaging his sister is happening now, currently.

A list of the things he had done earlier that day, to note, to tell to Hazel:

  1. Got Chiara to cut off all his many, many split ends. She made fun of him in the process.
  2. Obtained a singular (1) orange Camp Half-blood shirt. Is currently refusing to wear it.
  3. Ate an entire breakfast for once. Didn’t gag even a little bit. Not even though it was a waffle with syrup and not the non-threateningly nondescript texture of plain instant oatmeal.
  4. Managed to get Will to chill out on his coffee addiction.
  5. Insulted Sherman so hard that he got a good 4/5ths of the remaining camp to laugh, despite several death threats via the emotionally injured party.
  6. Witnessed Harley and some Athena kid friendship break up and friendship get back together in a span of four hours and three successfully built apology telescopes.
  7. Helped Kayla re-dye her pixie cut.
  8. Helped Austin film one of his cool youtube videos.
  9. Co-starred in one of Austin’s shitty vlogs.
  10. (Hazel’s voice is getting too loud to concentrate on this list.)



Hazel’s face looks almost dream-like through the low-graphics rendering of the Iris message. Her words come out as crisply as possible, sharp. It’s like getting a haircut from Freddie Krueger. “I just seriously do _not_ get it!”

Nico nods. The denarii he’s flipping catches the sunlight, hits his hand with a satisfying little  _thwump_ noise.

“It’s just—he’s such a fuckin’ idiot!” Hazel says, waving her hands around her face. If she were in the room with him he’d drop the coin to smooth out the crease between her eyebrows with his thumb.

 _Language,_ supplies one side of Nico’s brain, sounding suspiciously like Bianca. _You’ll get wrinkles if you keep like that,_ says the other, sounding suspiciously like his mamma.

“Nhm,” is what comes out. He wriggles in his seat a little, bending forward to rest an elbow on the mattress beside his bony criss-cross-applesauce knee.

Hazel rocks back and forth, reflexively glaring at nothing. “Like, Leo! I get you’re having complications with long-distance communication, but, oh, here’s an idea! Can you please, please, please come and visit a few of us for a sec beeee- _fore_ going on a vacation with your lady friend?”

“I have the letter,” says Nico, cocking a head at the inscription on the silver coin in his hand, “y’know, if you want to burn it. Give Valdez some of his own medicine.” The coin has a picture of Jason Grace on it. Nico guesses that it’s because he’s Pontifex Maximus, but maybe it’s because he’s hot. Maybe it’s because he died in a building collapse in California and Nico just doesn’t know it yet.

If Hazel heard him, she doesn’t make any indication of wanting to set anything on fire. A bit rawer than before, she continues, “Like! I mean! I cried, over you!”

 _Oh,_ thinks Nico. Yes, that is a fact, that Nico remembers, with a lot of heartache, and sympathy, and, maybe, a teeny tiny bit of murderous rage. No one has to be any the wiser of that last one, though Nico’s certain Will knows, given his displayed tendencies on the topic of murder.

Hazel grits her teeth and threads her fingers in the hair by her temples, no easy feat. The half of it on the left side is kind of flat, like she was lying on it before they started their bi-daily sibling gossip session. “The worst thing,” she groans, “is that I still miss him. I would like to kill him, but I miss him so bad. He’s still one of my best friends. Is that weird?”

Nico raises an eyebrow. “Rhetorical question?”

She acknowledges him for the first time since the beginning of her rant. “The realest of the real questions, for real.”

“...Okay.” He takes a deep breath. Pauses for a good few moments, until he’s sure that it has been conveyed that the silence is for dramatic effect and dramatic effect only. Raises his hands, palm up so that the denarii is in plain sight, mouth a thin line, and says, “I hate that boy. Even before, when I almost had no reason to.”

For a second it almost looks like Hazel is about to break out of her stony rage-face to crack a smile. She does not. “Right,” she says.

“As in, he’s a genuine part of my fakey fake hit-list. His jokes aren’t funny. Given any opportunity, I would throw a tomato at his face.” The complaints don’t seem likely to cease.

“Uh-huh.”

“Thinking about his laugh makes me want to punch a wall. I have scars on my knuckles from thinking about him and actually punching walls. Sometimes I wish that I had pushed him off the Argo II so that he could finally take even the modicum of a bath. That guy _reeked_ of oil and engine fumes.”

“Sure.”

“Like, I don’t even think the Argo II had a real engine?”

“It didn’t.”

“Exactly!” he nods, matter-of-factly, as if he had actually explained something worthwhile to her. “Et cetera. The point of this huge, long spiel is—”

Hazel frowns thoughtfully. Cocks her head to the side in true sarcastic Underworld kid fashion. “Is there a point?”

Nico waggles a finger at her threateningly, scowling all the while. “I was about to say it! The _point_. Is that.”

Hazel continues to eye him unwaveringly.

“Sometimes,” he says.

Hazel very slowly raises an eyebrow.

“ _Sometimes_ ,” he says again, more sharply, “there is no reason for feeling something about someone. Sometimes emotions just happen like that. Sometimes that certain someone proves you right, vis-a-vis me and him and this very situation. Maybe he’ll prove you missing him right, too?”

Hazel very slowly lowers her eyebrow. “So you’re saying that he may have a good reason, and maybe I can trust him again sometime soon,” she says. She fans herself in an almost indistinguishable flappy motion, looking off to the side, as if the very idea is scandalous to her.

“Okay, well. Slow your whistle down a little bit there.” He closes his eyes, lip curling and shoulders jutting up for the dramaticism, if nothing else. “I am saying, with my mouth, that maybe he’s not a complete tool.”

“And that he can buy my affection?” she brainstorms out loud, almost intrigued. “Perhaps with fancy gifts and those awesome fuckin’ automaton cars that move on their own?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t kill him?”

“Oh, I’m still going to kill him.”

Hazel grins, big and toothy and creepy. “Me too.”

It is very hard to not burst into tears from how much Nico loves her. Still, he snorts and replies, “C’mon, we have to go good cop, bad cop on this. That will get to him more. Make him get the heebie-jeebies.” He performs the vague essence of what are jazz hands, then stretches out lazily, his cheek going to sit in his palm.

“Yeah? You should go good cop, then,” Hazel says, “considering _I’m_ the one that was the most scorned by all this.” She, in turn, straightens up like shes proposing a very important political maneuver, all hands-together and thumbs-overlapping and brace-shouldered.

“Excuse me?” Nico says. “ _I’m_ the one with the bad cop reputation. A lot of my friends are dead people, Hazel, and I talk to them regularly.”

She shakes her head, a laugh catching at her throat. “I’m just _saying_. Good cop is less fun. Anyways, that’s—I called you to catch up, loser. Not to complain.” Hazel does a miraculous impersonation of the Clinton thumb, rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue out at herself. “Aside from that, how’re things going for you nowadays?”

Hm.

Events move through his head so quickly that can’t even begin to summarize for her. For a moment, he thinks about mentioning the time Kayla challenged him to a dance off.  
  
Despite himself, Nico’s face twitches into a smile. “Pretty okay, I think,” he says. “You?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fin.

**Author's Note:**

> you see, the goof is that this fanfiction is lists within a list within a list. i just think lists are neat
> 
> NOTE: 1st chapter takes place in the summer just after the battle with gaia. 2nd chapter takes place after all the people that arent year-rounders have left, but before the disappearances have begun. all of this takes place before the events of toa


End file.
